Our Very First Christmas
by Lost In Rotation
Summary: Max wakes D.J. up in the wee hours of Christmas morning to gush over his new toy. A holiday one-shot.


"Mom! Mom!" The bed shakes under the miniature earthquake.

When she fails to respond quickly enough, he sinks into the pillowtop mattress, his bony knees stabbing into her back. "Mommmm." He drags out the word this time, shaking her shoulders to stir her from her heavy slumber.

"I'm awake," she declares in protest, rolling away from him to prevent further injury. He jitters, poised precariously with his short legs dangling off the edge. His feet wiggle freely in suspended air.

Her back bumps into the body on her other side, but it is far less inclined to bruise her. "What time is it?" She means to ask what is it he wants, but her eyes wander to the clock on the nightstand. The glowing green LED numbers mock her exhaustion.

"Guess what Santa brought me. Guess, guess, guess!" He ignores her question, plowing onward in his delight.

She stifles a yawn so large her jaw aches from the effort of pulling her mouth wide. "What did Santa bring you?" She reaches to him, catching his shoulder and dragging him down onto the mattress beside her. His constant bouncing threatens to pull her, alert, into consciousness. If he succeeds, she'll never fall back asleep.

"A drone!"

"A what?" This news surprises her. She'd stayed up half the night sneaking the gifts from Stephanie's room in the basement to underneath the tree in the living room. She definitely did not buy him a drone.

"A drone, Mom! Come watch me fly it. Cosmo likes to chase it around the table and the tree."

So many segments of his sentence send up red flags, but her body refuses to move an inch in the memory foam hugging her. "Maybe later, sweetie." She cradles him against her chest, just as she did when he was younger. When did he start growing up so fast? Would Tommy be the same? "Did Jackson wake you up?"

"I set an alarm." Though horizontal on the bed, he still manages to bounce in place. His shoulders and elbows knock into her stomach and collarbone.

"I turned off your alarm." At least, she vaguely remembers doing so when sneaking into his room halfway through the night to make sure he still slept.

"I hid Ramona's battery powered one," Max confesses with a note of satisfaction. "But I'm not going to tell you where!"

She recalls a few Christmases back when she spent all night running interference on the boys while Tommy worked like a caffeine powered elf to get everything ready in time for the morning. She has to admit, the whole ordeal goes a little smoother now that Jackson is too old to believe in Santa Claus and Tommy is too young. Still, the early morning wakeup call from Max threatens her entire balance for the day. Once the sun rises, the house will overflow with family coming in to stay for the next few days. The next few hours are her last opportunity to sleep for a week.

"Why don't you go play with your drone," she pauses to yawn, the sound reverberating deep within her throat, "and I'll come down in a little bit to make the Santa Claus pancakes."

"Blueberry?"

"Of course."

"Okay, okay." He leaps from the bed, clambering over the side and out of her grip in an instant. "But you _have_ to make them, Mom. With the icing beard and everything."

"I promise."

He dashes around the foot of the bed, charging toward the open door. Before he even has the bedroom door shut securely behind him, he bellows Jackson's name down the hallway.

D.J. groans, reaching for the pillow under her head. Dragging it out from under her stiff neck, she drops it down on the side of her face, pressing it against her ear.

The lump behind her shifts with a half asleep grunt. Fingers scramble to pull the pillow away. "Noooo," she whines, reaching blindly above her to still the motion.

"My pillow," he complains, tucking it under his head despite her protests.

She swears she just took it from under herself, but exhaustion weighs heavily on her mind and she can't be certain. Whatever, she thinks, too tired to voice the word. Mentally counting down the minutes until her alarm will go off, she sinks back into him and closes her eyes.

What feels like only minutes later, the alarm pierces through the silence of the room. She groans, reaching out in the general vicinity of her nightstand. Her hand swats at open air, then makes contact with the rounded edge of the plastic clock. Stephanie and Kimmy both mock her for having an alarm clock. Another sign she's stuck in the 90s, as they love to tease. Time and again they try to persuade her to use the alarm on her phone.

"Deej," he complains as the harsh buzzing continues to sound. Her fingers dance across the smooth edge of the top before smacking on the alarm button. The sudden silence is a welcome return.

"What time is it?" On the verge of dreamland, he mumbles through his sleep. The bed shifts behind her as he lifts his head to glance over her shoulder at the clock. His groan follows a second later. "Too early." His head drops to the pillow, turning his eyes into the grey pillowcase.

"Dad, Uncle Jesse, and Joey should all be here soon." She apologizes in her inflection of the words, knowing the first round of a full Tanner Christmas requires an adjustment.

"Nnnnnnnn." A noncommittal vibrating from the back of his throat comes as his reply.

Lifting the comforter up, she turns in the bed to face him. She cannot help the smile that spreads across her face. Though tuckered out by the last minute preparations the night before, he still finds a way to look stunningly handsome. His tossing and turning of uneasy sleep throughout the short night has left his hair unruly. Snuggling in closer to him, she runs her fingers across the cheek visible outside the pillow.

At her touch, he turns his head towards her. Her smile widens as she shifts across the mattress to close the small gap between them. "Merry Christmas."

Though his eyes remain lidded with sleep refusing the vacate, he returns her soft kiss, his lips warm against her mouth. A chorus of "Ooooooos" does not rupture through the chilly morning air, but the early morning kiss after laying wrapped in his arms is just as sweet as the other, more passionate ones.

"Merry Christmas." He returns the sentiment, his throat scratchy. "Did I hear something about Santa pancakes?" His eyebrows lift in question as his eyes fully open for the first time.

A sweet sigh escapes her. "Never doubt that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach." Her mind flints to Steve for a fraction of a second, but returns to Matt as her hand slides down his cheek to his chest, skirting down the front of his plain white undershirt to rest on his flat stomach. His muscles flex beneath her touch, and she marvels at the definition of his abs.

"So… is that a yes?" he asks, his own grin forming to match hers.

"For Santa's helper elf who stayed up until two in the morning to help me sneak all the presents in? Yes, that is a yes."

The guttural sound returns as he begins to stretch his aching muscles. Just the reminder of how late they were up makes each sore part of his body throb, his arms most of all. He reaches above his head, his hands colliding with the headboard as he works out the kinks in his body. "I'm pretty sure it was past three by the time we finally came upstairs." A yawn breaks his sentence in two.

"Then I guess you deserve chocolate syrup with your pancakes."

His hands drop down onto the mattress. While he tucks the right one under his pillow, the left one settles on the curve of her waist. "Not sure I completely understand your logic, but I never say no to chocolate." As he leans in for another kiss, the door explodes inward without warning, propelled on its hinges but a child sized tornado.

"Mom, you promised to check out my drone!" Max scurries onto the bed, Cosmo in tow. The bedsprings groans under the sudden additional weight as both son and dog clamber to climb across the California king sized bed to Matt and D.J. "Matt, you have to come check it out! Jackson got one too. They are SO cool." His fists jitter at his sides with excitement.

D.J. releases a sigh as she pushes back the comforter. Though she had hoped for a few more minutes of peace and quiet, Max has officially kicked off Christmas morning. She cannot even fathom how wired he will be once he gets sugar pumped into him at breakfast. She only hopes Tommy will be on his best behavior today to lighten the load.

On cue, the doorbell rings throughout the house, signaling the arrival of the first of many guests of the day. "Mine is cooler than Jackson's though," Max continues, following D.J. to the edge of the bed. As Matt climbs out after her, he lifts Max from under the arms and sets him on the floor. Not fazed in the least, Max jumps up and down with excitement. "I hooked mine up to Aunt Stephanie's iPad and used it as a controller."

"Does Aunt Stephanie know you borrowed her iPad?" D.J. asks, moving to the arm chair in the corner of the room. Anticipating a late night and early morning, she set out her clothes before they collapsed into bed the previous evening.

"She won't mind. I use it all the time. Jackson doesn't even have his charged up yet."

"Downstairs, Little Man," D.J. orders, her voice soft but firm. "We'll be down in a minute."

"And then you'll come watch me fly my drone?"

"As soon as I get the pancakes started." Catching his shoulders, she turns him to face the open bedroom door. "Why don't you go make sure someone answered the front door?"

"It's always open," Max protests, but his short legs carry him towards the door. He turns back to face them as she grabs the shirt, slacks, and sweater off the armrest. "Remember, you promised!" He backtracks into the hallway. "Come on, Cosmo!" On his whistle, Cosmo bounds off the bed, charging out into the hallway to beat Max to the stairs.

"Never a dull moment in this house," Matt smiles. His chin drops to her shoulder as he falls into step behind her, bending over slightly to kiss her check. His long arms snake around her to grab his neatly folded clothes off the opposite armrest.

She turns to face him, holding her bundle of clothes against her chest. As she stretches up on the pads of her feet, he leans down to meet her. When she regrettably pulls away, she admits, "I'm glad you could be here this year. And that your dad could join us."

"I'm glad I'm not being jostled in the streets of New Delhi this year trying to find someone who speaks English to ask directions to get to Dad's place. And that I won't have to come home to find you proposing to someone on New Year's."

"I'm not one to brag," Matt scoffs slightly at this claim, "but that was my best proposal ever. Oh no, Steve."

Matt's forehead creases at the name.

"I forgot he and C.J. are coming."

"And…"

"If I don't have breakfast made before they get here, Steve will start in on the Christmas ham."

They both remember the turkey incident from this past Thanksgiving. "Right," Matt agrees. "Changed and to the kitchen then."

"To the kitchen."

He catches her elbow as she turns towards the bathroom, bringing her in for one final kiss. He lingers and she hesitates to pull away. His voice lowers to barely above a whisper. "I have a present for you later. Far better than the tennis rackets I got you for your birthday."

"The private tennis lesson with Andy Murray more than made up for the fact that I haven't used the racket since." Matt had confessed that Steve was the one to organize the tickets to the New Kids on the Block concert, but meeting and failing at tennis miserably with Andy Murray had been all Matt's doing. Her gaze darted to the framed photograph on the top of her dresser of the three of them standing at the net of the court she had brutalized.

"Well your Christmas present isn't that special unfortunately. I've only done emergency surgery on one famous athlete's border terrier for now."

"Just having you here is special." Their moment is cut short as the doorbell chimes for the second time of many.

"Changed and to the kitchen," she reminds them both. He gives her butt a loving prod with his knee as she heads to the bathroom to change.


End file.
